A hotel in the city has been closed down and all the guests moved out because a pro-Tibet group held a protest there a couple of days ago. Good on you Paul, stay away from the stadia and give us more of this – the real story of Beijing 2008.

Beijing’s Hotel G has just become Hotel Gone – closed down by Chinese security, maybe for the period of the Games, maybe indefinitely.

Its crime: a room was used for a Free Tibet protest.

The abrupt closure shows how some people and businesses in China live on a knife edge even today, and also demonstrates how ingenious and stealthy dissidents have to be to avoid being “disappeared”.

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2 Responses to Olympic coverage I like

Having a 9 year old who is meant to be retrieving “good – I gather as in happy” newspaper stories about China and the Olympics however we are finding it extremely hard to find anything “good” to provide him with apart from the facts that are now in our faces (& need to be);

– disgraceful human rights history
– the great “firewall” of China, apparent freedom of speech…
– implications on China’s own people in preparation; a man jailed in 2004 for asking permission to start a petition to avoid 10,000 people being evicted from their low rent homes to make way for a new Olympic venue to be built
– horrendous pollution – wow, a need for serious climate change!!! At least the world knows how bad it really is there!
– issues happening in China as you point out above, murder, bombings, action against any protests (interesting that Cadel Evans wore a Free Tibet t-shirt during the Tour de France yet no sign of it in China, hmmm)

Obviously vital issues albeit a little tricky to explain to a reasonably clever 9 yr old however most of it was lost on his classmates. I think it is extremely important for little people to get to know about the world and see other countries & cultures for what they are; these kids are our future.

So, apart form making a big deal about who wins gold medals, etc, that’s about it for the “happy” news. Shame it’s not about striving to compete at an elite level & simply doing your best, which is the message kids should be getting from any sport.

I question the IOC in their “wisdom” actually allocating the Games to China in the first place when it’s meant to be about freewill & world harmony…